FROM

So here are 7 reasons why even those who prioritize
human concerns over animal concerns should still go vegan.

If there’s one thing that veganism has taught me, it’s
that everything is interconnected. We can’t commit violence over there and
then wonder why there’s violence over here. We can’t meditate on inner peace
and world peace, while consuming the products of violence. Ignoring one form
of violence while fighting another places us at odds with our fundamental
goals.

A version of this article appeared on The Dodo, April 2015.

When promoting veganism, we animal advocates are often confronted by
claims of care toward humans as though they negate the importance of going
vegan. Veganism is dismissed and trivialized as something for “animal
lovers,” not for humanitarians and social justice advocates. It often goes
something like, “I care about human issues” or “We have too many human
problems to solve before we can deal with animal rights.”

If there’s one thing that veganism has taught me, it’s that everything is
interconnected. We can’t commit violence over there and then wonder why
there’s violence over here. We can’t meditate on inner peace and world
peace, while consuming the products of violence. Ignoring one form of
violence while fighting another places us at odds with our fundamental
goals.

So here are 7 reasons why even those who prioritize human concerns over
animal concerns should still go vegan.

1. Do you eat?

If you have time to eat in a day, and have access to grains, legumes, and
some fruits and vegetables, then you have time to eat a vegan diet while
still dedicating all of your other time to humans. The same goes for
consuming other products of animal exploitation. If you have the time and
resources to consume animal-based entertainment, buy animal-based clothing
or animal-tested personal or household products, you have the time and
resources to do the same thing minus the exploitation.

2. Using animals does not demonstrate care for humans…

…it just demonstrates disregard for nonhuman animals and disregard for
the negative impact that using their bodies as resources has on humans and
ecosystems. In other words, you’re not showing how much you care for humans
by not being vegan. You demonstrate care for humans by caring for humans,
and by paying attention to the ways in which domination and injustice affect
multiple groups. The principles that guide us to help humans — justice,
compassion, peace, nonviolence — also happen to be the foundations of
veganism, and they’re better served when a source of violence to which we
directly contribute is eliminated. Veganism is empowering because it creates
a foundation of nonviolence that supports other forms of activism.

3. Compassion and justice are not quantitative values

You don’t run out of compassion and justice when you use some on nonhuman
animals. In fact, as many activists can attest to, the more compassion you
allow yourself to feel and the more expansive your sense of justice, the
more you will generate. Imagine if your sense of food justice also protects
other vulnerable beings and protects the environmental landscape for future
generations. Justice grows. If your heart can cringe at the sight of a cat
in pain, imagine what you must feel for a human child. If you feel
indignation when someone squashes an insect, imagine how you must feel when
humans go to war. Compassion grows.

4. We already think that unnecessary animal suffering is wrong

If you think it’s wrong when someone beats a dog or kicks a cat, ask
yourself why. We tend to respond with moral indignation because these acts
cause unnecessary suffering. Even if we think that humans matter more than
animals and that we would save a human life over an animal life any day, we
still think that it’s wrong to cause unnecessary suffering to animals. Since
we don’t need animal products to live healthfully, any amount of suffering
caused to an animal raised as a resource is unnecessary. Eating a fish or an
ice cream cone or wearing a leather jacket causes no less suffering than
kicking a cat; in fact, it likely causes much more suffering. Being vegan is
the absolute least we can do if we care even a tiny bit about animals. If
you care enough about animals to care for a cat or a hamster, to think it’s
wrong when someone kills a whale or steps on a mouse, then you care enough
to not eat a cow or a chicken or a fish. Animals are sentient: they feel
pain and pleasure and they have an interest in not suffering and not dying.
And luckily, this is all it takes to warrant moral consideration.

5. Violence produces violence

Nonhuman animal suffering is human suffering. Whether you kill animals
yourself or pay others to do it for you, by creating an industry that
requires humans to act violently, we contribute to a violent humanity.
Individuals who work in slaughterhouses have high rates of workplace injury,
mental illness, suicide, drug abuse and domestic violence. To quote William
Blake, “a dog starved at his master’s gate predicts the ruin of the state.”
Psychologists interpret violent behavior against nonhuman animals as a
precursor to violence against humans. The way we treat every living organism
is a reflection of our entire worldview. We can’t expect justice and peace
within our own species while we terrorize others.

6. Animal agriculture affects us all

According to the World Watch Institute: “[t]he human appetite for animal
flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of
environmental damage now threatening the human future — deforestation,
erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change,
biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities, and
the spread of disease.” Breeding, feeding and killing animals requires
tremendous resources that are now being depleted beyond regeneration. This
affects the world’s poor most drastically. There are over 7 billion people
on the planet, while nearly 1 billion people are currently malnourished or
dying or starvation. More than 6 million children will die this year of
starvation. 82 percent of these children live in countries where grain
surpluses are fed to animals that are eaten by individuals in the developed
world. One quarter of all of the grain produced in third world countries is
given to livestock. This affects food prices, food availability and food
security for everyone.

7. We can fight oppression everywhere

The dominating, “othering” consciousness required to oppress groups that
are perceived as different, and inferior based on those differences, affects
various victim groups in different ways. One of these victim groups is
nonhuman animals whose discrimination is on the basis of species. When we’re
working to dismantle an oppressive system like patriarchy or white
supremacy, we’re opposing a system of discrimination by a dominant group and
dominant worldview that seeks to exclude, denigrate, and exploit a group
based on their perceived differences from the dominant group. This basic
structure of oppression is also perpetuated through speciesism. So when we
exclude nonhuman animals as a victim group, we miss an opportunity to
further deconstruct and overthrow an oppressive system held in common by
different oppressed groups.

After these considerations, we might still be left with one or more of
the four common justifications for continuing to eat animal products:
tradition, habit, convenience or pleasure. But as progressive people, we
don’t have a problem condemning traditions or habits that don’t hold up to
moral scrutiny. We have no problem saying that if a tradition involves
violence against women that it needs to change. Or that if someone derives
pleasure from harming children that they need to change.

Ethical principles that protect individuals from harm transcend social
considerations like tradition, cultural norms, and dominant ideologies, as
well as individual considerations like habits, tastes, and convenience.
Social and cultural maxims and individual wants cannot serve as ethical
justifications. They always serve as excuses and rationalizations. So
instead of responding with knee-jerk excuses or hiding behind concerns for
humanity, let’s start fighting for justice everywhere. An easy place to
start is on our plates.

Patti Nyman holds a Master’s degree in Social and Political Thought from
York University where she specialized in theories of liberation. She has
taught undergraduate courses at York University on critical social theory
and dominant ideologies of the West. A writer and activist, Patti has
written scholarly articles on feminist theory and the philosophy of
religion, and currently works with Animal Place on campaigns and social
media.

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